Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012 Quotes

“The Tull-Toks claim that everything in the universe can be read. Each star is a living text, where the massive convection currents of superheated gas tell an epic drama, with the starspots serving as punctuation, the coronal loops extended figures of speech, and the flares emphatic passages that ring true in the deep silence of cold space. Each planet contains a poem, written out in the bleak, jagged, staccato rhythm of bare rocky cores or the lyrical, lingering, rich rhymes—both masculine and feminine—of swirling gas giants. And then there are the planets with life, constructed like intricate jeweled clockwork, containing a multitude of self-referential literary devices that echo and re-echo without end.”
― Ken Liu, Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012

“It is as if the Caru'ee were able to perceive an echo of the past, and unconsciously, as they built upon a palimpsest of books written long ago and long forgotten, chanced to stumble upon an essence of meaning that could not be lost, no matter how much time had passed.”
― Ken Liu, Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012

“Might Be Too Strong a Word”) and award-winning author Michael Swanwick (“Slow Life”). For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella is “A Separate War” by Joe Haldeman, and we have an excerpt of Kitty Steals”
― John Joseph Adams, Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012

“(“Love Might Be Too Strong a Word”) and award-winning author Michael Swanwick (“Slow Life”). For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella is “A Separate War” by Joe Haldeman, and we have an excerpt of Kitty Steals”
― John Joseph Adams, Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012

“But it is the event horizon around a black hole where the Tull-Toks claim the greatest books are to be found. When a Tull-Tok is tired of browsing through the endless universal library, she drifts toward a black hole. As she accelerates toward the point of no return, the streaming gamma rays and x-rays unveil more and more of the ultimate mystery for which all the other books are but glosses. The book reveals itself to be ever more complex, more nuanced, and just as she is about to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the book she is reading, she realizes with a start that time has slowed down to standstill, and she will have eternity to read it as she falls forever towards a center that she will never reach.

Finally, a book has triumphed over time.

Of course, no Tull-Tok has ever returned from such a journey, and many dismiss their discussion of reading black holes as pure myth. Indeed, many consider the Tull-Toks to be nothing more than illiterate frauds who rely on mysticism to disguise their ignorance.”
― Ken Liu, Lightspeed Magazine, August 2012